The invention relates to a lashing bar for securingly hanging in an anchoring opening of a container corner, with a selected one of two hooking-in fittings provided at the upper end and which in each case have a pin extending substantially at right angles to the bar and to which is fixed a hooking-in portion, which is asymmetrical with respect to the plane in which the central axis of the bar is located and to which the longitudinal axis of the pin portion connected to the hooking-in portion is parallel, so that the first side of the hooking-in portion projects further laterally over the plane than the facing, second side and which with the hooking-in fitting hung into an anchoring opening and the bar pivoted into the clamping position engages behind respective marginal regions of the anchoring opening, one of the hooking-in portions being constructed for engaging behind the marginal regions of the anchoring opening when the lower end of the bar is pivoted to one side of the extension of the vertical axis of the anchoring opening and the other hooking-in portion being constructed for engaging behind the marginal regions of the anchoring opening when the lower end of the bar is pivoted to the other side of the extension of the vertical axis of the anchoring opening and the two hooking-in portions are homologous to a plane located between them.
In a known lashing bar of this type (see, e.g., Borchardt, U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,539, issued Aug. 27, 1985) the hooking-in fittings precisely face one another at the upper end of the bar (i.e. are diametrically opposed with respect to the longitudinal axis of the bar), so that the plane to which the hooking-in portions are homologously constructed (i.e. the plane of symmetry) is parallel to the hooking-in portions. The actual hooking-in portions in each case comprise a locking lug, which at least approximately extends in the longitudinal direction of the bar and from the pin in the direction away from the remote bar end and an additional locking lug, which extends substantially at right angles to the pin and at right angles to the locking lug, the locking lug and the additional locking lug being located in one plane. The locking lug has a maximum width less than the maximum width of the anchoring opening of a lower container corner and the distance between the free end of the locking lug and its facing end or the surface of the pin remote from the free end of the locking lug is smaller than the height of the anchoring opening of a lower container corner, but sufficiently large for the locking lug in the clamped position to engage behind the marginal region of the end-face anchoring opening of an upper container corner. In the clamping position, i.e. in the position in which the lower end of the bar is laterally pivoted out of the vertical axis of the anchoring opening, the additional locking lug extends behind the marginal region of the end-face anchoring opening, which faces the marginal region behind which the locking lug engages. The lower end of the pivoted bar is on the same side of the vertical axis through the anchoring opening as the free end of the additional locking lug, whilst the free end of the locking lug is on opposite side of said axis.
By means of the known lashing bar described in detail in Borchardt U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,539, a reliable anchoring of the lashing bar is possible both in the narrower anchoring openings in the lower container corners and the lateral anchoring openings in the upper container corners, as well as in the wider anchoring openings provided at the end face on the upper container corners, whilst as a result of the homologously facing asymmetrical hooking-in portions, one hooking-in fitting is suitable for use in a clamping position with the bar extending to the bottom right and the other hooking-in fitting is intended for use in a clamping position with the bar extending to the bottom left.
A difficulty when using the known lashing bar is that the hooking-in fitting facing the hooking-in fitting which has been hung-in is in the way if it is necessary to lash down a container resting on the container, in whose upper anchoring opening the lashing bar is hung. Due to the projecting length of the free hooking-in fitting in the outwards direction, it is then extremely difficult and often impossible to make a further, correspondingly constructed lashing bar engage with an immediately superimposed anchoring opening of the upper container, reference being made thereto in Borchardt U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,539.